Cape Town - Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu has made a scathing finding against the government for failing to use more than R700 million to fix the backlog of access to water and sanitation.
Makwetu said in a report on rural household infrastructure grants that the Department of Human Settlements had over three years failed to fully use R1.2 billion to address the backlog of access to water and toilets.
He said that between 2010 and 2013, the department had only used R501m of the R1.2bn allocated for this project.
On Monday, the Department of Human Settlements referred all enquiries to the water and sanitation officials, who did not respond to enquiries.
It said the project now fell under their portfolio.
In his audit report on the rural household infrastructure grant, Makwetu said the Department of Human Settlements had not used all of its budget on this programme.
“Between 2010 and 2013, the department budgeted R1.2bn to eradicate the backlog of access to water and sanitation for all households by 2014,” Makwetu explained.
“But the department spent only R501.4m of the total amount over the past three financial years.”
There were a number of problems identified by Makwetu on the state’s failure to meet this target.
He said one of the major problems was around the question of tenders.
Some of the suppliers appointed to assist the department with its capacity problems had not met their target.
There was a collusive behaviour between some of the companies appointed with people in the department, the auditor-general found.
“The management consultant did not demonstrate an ability to effectively manage the rural household infrastructure programme,” he said.
Makwetu added that there were a lot of issues of non-compliance with standards.
“Limited expenditure was incurred during the first three quarters of the financial year of the project span,” he said.
“The pattern of expenditure was 100 percent during the last quarter of 2010/-11, 72.6 percent in 2011-12 and 74.4 percent in 2012-13.
“This pattern is indicative of poor planning that impacted on service delivery,” the auditor-general said.
He said figures from Statistics South Africa showed that 2.6 million houses still did not have access to sanitation.
“It was the government’s objective to eradicate this backlog of access to water and basic sanitation for all households by December 2014,” he pointed out.
Makwetu said sanitation was the basic service that needed to be met.
It would improve the quality of life of the people still in need of these basic services, he explained.
Political Bureau